Last night, in-between raindrop and costume hardware malfunctions, we hosted the 2nd Annual Makey Awards at World Maker Faire. The show was hosted by MAKE contributing editor Matt Richardson and makezine.com contributor Gillian BenAry. I presented the Maker Hero Award.

Here is a list of the nominees and category winners. Congrats to all who were nominated and those who won. What you do and how you serve the maker movement is important.

And last but most awesome of all, we gave away the 2012 Maker Hero Award. This year, we honored someone whose hacking chops are unassailable. Whether she’s hacking pinballs machines, building racecars, pushing the limits of DIY electronics engineering, or taunting others with “Did you bring a hack?, Jeri Ellsworth is a makers-maker, a hackers-hacker, and just all-around badass. For all of this and much more, we honor Jeri Ellsworth as the 2012 Maker Hero. Congrats, Jeri!

One of the amazingly fun parts of last night’s Makey Awards was the host getting styling from MAKE contributor, fashion designer, and ham radio geek Diana Eng, and hair and make-up from Jessica Jade Jacob and Suki Tsujimoto. The big hit was the LED dresses, eyelashes, jewelry, and my “embedded” LED mohawk.

Gareth Branwyn is a freelancer writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor for Boing Boing and WINK Books. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

J

Where can we get more information about your LED mohawk?

http://kevix.myopenid.com kevix

when I spoke to him, he jokingly said they were embedded and he said it was something like crazy glue and a strip of SMD LEDs.

Gareth Branwyn

J, there were three LED SMD strips glued to my head and then they put some kind of silicone spackle around them to make them look like they were embedded in my head. They then matched my skin-tone with make-up. The LED strips ran down the back of my head and to a battery pack stuck in the “pheasant pocket” of my hipster hunting vest.